“I want you to tell me when I am wrong even if it costs you your job.”
The above quote from Samuel Goldwyn (of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer fame) to a direct report, sums up the dilemma faced by many senior managers, who find themselves reporting to strong, charismatic leaders, many of whom are often the founders of their companies. This “damned if I do, damned if I don't” dilemma is a perennial one and adversely affects the performance of those managers who find themselves in this position. They find themselves asking the question, ‘is there a way to negotiate this dilemma, can you lead when you are a follower, and if so how?’.
In Managing Up!, we take the stance that not only is it possible, but it is necessary, to develop the skill set to effectively ‘manage’ your manager and to learn how to, as one author puts it, ‘lead without authority’. We will not be attempting to be clones of Machiavelli, but we will be learning fundamental strategies and acquiring the mindset required to
- create a working relationship based on partnership:
- create an environment where meaningful feedback is both given and received,
- fully inhabit the role we were hired to do – within the requisite degrees of freedom and
- fully support our managers in a way that allows them to operate at the right level and to be confident to really delegate pivotal tasks and responsibilities.
Agenda for the Day
To facilitate this, the session will introduce and explore concepts and tools such as:
- The Heroic Leader syndrome and its effects
- The Six Leadership Styles
- The Responsibility Ladder and degrees of freedom
- Building organisational capital
The session will be fun and interactive, featuring plenty of exercises with a focus on building confidence to use the tools back in the workplace to get immediate results.
English (Canada) 
Français du Canada